Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to distinguish two roles of theories, domain theory and method theory, and examine their relationships in management accounting research. Are these two roles explicitly distinguished in management accounting studies? Can this be achieved in an unambiguous...

This paper extends and contributes to emerging debates on the validation of interpretive research (IR) in management accounting. We argue that IR has the potential to produce not only subjectivist, emic understandings of actors' meanings, but also explanations, characterised by a certain degree...